Insecurites

Ok I am extremely insecure about so many things it's ridiculous. I dont think I'm that pretty, I feel like I have a weird personality, I don't have many friends, and many more but I feel like the all come down to the big notion of being accepted. I feel that I haven't been accepted in the past and so going into new environments scare me to death. I'm always afraid that people aren't going to accept me for who I am. I guess I'll kind of go through the entire background of where all of these feelings have come from.

It all really started in 6th grade. Since my family moved the following year and we were now in a new school boundaries I had to go to a new school for 6th grade. Now this was one of hardest things I've had to do. Before this I never considered myself shy but I think this where I got some of my shyness from. It was really hard for me to approach someone and talk to them and yet no one was talking to me. I spent the first couple of months either by myself or hanging out with my younger brother and his friends because I couldn't seem to make any of my own. As the year progressed I went from one group of people to the other...never really feeling like I belonged. At the end of 6th grade I started hanging out with some of the more popular kids in the 6th grade but even then I never really felt fully accepted.

In middle school I started the year hanging out with these friends and some of my old friends from my first elementary school. But once again didnt really fully feel accepted. With the kids from 6th grade, they had all known each other since kindergarten and I still felt like the new kid. With my friends from DeVargas I felt out of place because they had spent a year with out me and seemed to get along with out me just fine. Eventually I settled in with hanging out with some of my "less popular" (even though I really didn't care at all whether or not they were popular). I enjoyed hanging out with them for the most part but I felt like I only clicked with a small handful of them and I had one friend (we'll call her suzzy) that was pretty much my rock in that group. She was really the only person I felt truly accepted by in middle school. Until we got a girl (we'll call her Pam) from France come in the middle of eighth grade. She was really shy and worried about making friends so I befriended her and we seemed to hit it off quite nicely...or so I thought. The two of these friends pretty much made my group of real friends until they started to criticize the fact that I didn't swear, or I never wore immodest clothing, or that I didn't go to the dances because I wasn't comfortable there. They started to question my beliefs and started calling me a "goody goody". Ok ya so what if I am? If they were truly my friends they would accept me for who I am and not ask questions right? But no they started tearing me down and so cone again I didn't feel accepted.

So now going into high school. Suzzy moved and went to another schol across down so it was just down to Pam and I. Pam started to hang out with other people that I wasn't comfortable around so I started to hang around with the other Mormon folk at Tino. I was ok here but at the beginning I still didn't feel completely comfortable because they were all older than me and my best friend from church was in a grade younger than me. So I kind of once again was just there to make it look like I sorta had friends but I really didnt. Eventually I started to grow this great friendship with Carolyn Dye (she is up to this day my very best friend). Carolyn was there for me and I have no idea how to thank her for being there in my crazy emotional roller coaster. I love you so much. Anyways. In December two of my best friends who I hadn't seen in 5 years because they moved came back to California for a semester of school. To make a super duper long story short I started to like my best guy friend and he liked me too. (i was nt planning on sharing this but here it goes) with this guy liking me I started to feel more and more accepted. I had Carolyn and Brenna and this guy. Things were going great. I also started to feel more accepted at church dances because we hada pretty big group there. I felt truly happy for once. Well then comes summer and these two friends had to go home. Ya now this was hard but I still had Carolyn.

Nothing really eventful happened sophomore year other than the fact that I felt more and more out of place with my peers. It felt like the more and more I spent away from them there more and a more they seemed to not want anything to do with me. These are people that I actually thought I was sorta friends with. Turns out I was wrong. I started being that person in class that when you were doing a group activity I was the one with out a group or a partner. People never really talked to me in class. Once again I no longer felt accepted. Not to mention the fact that this was about the time that the guy I mentioned early started to like a girl from where he lived. So now I feel lonelier than I had ever felt. This is a big reason behind my attendance record. I sort of stopped caring about my school work. Many days I would wake up and feel like it just wasn't worth going to school. I would pretend that I was sick and stay in bed all day just by myself. As time went on it got worse and worse. This continued through junior year. Pretty much the same thing just getting worse as it was confirmed upon me that I really didn't have any true friends that i could just talk to besides Carolyn. Little did I know it was about to get even harder.

Senior year. Senior year pretty much started out bad from the beginning. Over the summer I gained a lot of weight because I am an emotional eater. At the time I didn't realize it but i know I am now. I gained a lot of weight because I was so down all the time because I didn't have any friends and didn't feel accepted. There were even times when I didn't feel accepted in my own family or home. Anyways when senior started I was alredy super insecure because of my weight gain and not to mention the fact that I no longer had Carolyn because she had graduated and was off to BYU. I knew before senior year started that it was going to be tough. And it was!

It was about Novemeber when my parents started talking about moving. It started out with moving ot Evanston, WY. I though great this can be a new start for me. People who haven't known me my entire life, it's going to be great. Well Evanston fell through because my dad couldn't get a job so we started looking at houses in the Tracy, CA area. We ended up buying a house and moving in March of this past year. (this is going to be the hardest part to write). Moving in march wasn't really the best time to move...especially in your senior year of high school. There were only 2 1/2 months left of school and Manteca is one of those cities where everyone grew up together. At least that's what it felt like when I got here. Our ward is pretty small and I didn't feel accepted at all (i still dont really). I once again felt so out of place. Here are all these people who have known each other for I dont know how long and I'm the new girl. I hate being the new girl. I like my old ward where I was that person that knew everyone. I was in my old ward since I was born. It was so hard to leave them and then to come to Manteca and feel so out of place. All I wanted to do was just go back home! But I knew that was out of the picure. It was really hard for me to compete with Caleb. I know that partially my fault and I shouldn't blame him but it was hard for me to make friends when he was there. Caleb and I are complete opposites. He is super out going and good at putting himself out there and I'm just not. I'm shy and am afraid of being judged. So here's Caleb making all of these friends and he even gets a girlfriend and I once again get left in the shadows. A lot of times I feel like people can't see me...once again I didn't feel accepted. To get away from all of this I decided to go to Idaho with my sister for three weeks. Well when i came back it was worse. Caleb by then had all of these friends and I had zero. He was getting invited to all these things and I wasn't. I used to raise my hand in seminary to answer questions but now I just wasn't comfortable doing even that. The only people I truly felt accepted by were the Larsons and I thank them for that. They make me feel better when they invite me over to go to their house. When they take that extra mile to include me. Thank you April, Alyssa, and Anny for loving me. You really have gotten through all of this. Its the prospect of seeing you guys say hi to me that gets me church on days that I just don't want to face the world. I love you guys and once again thank you for loving me for who I am. I don't know if you guys will read but seriously thank you so much.

I still find myself wanting to go back "home" to Cupertino. Back to the Stevens Creek Ward. But even that has changed. My world is changing and I dont know how to deal with it.

Now I am facing the future. I am considering going to the single ward but then I wonder if I'm going to have to g through what I went through when we moved. I don't know if i could do that again. I know that's it's probably the only way that I'm going to be able to make friends and meet a guynbut still the whole thing scares me so much because all I want is to be accepted. That's all.

Today in Young Womens we had a lesson on being a friend. That's what pretty much inspired this blog because I've been thinking about friends today. I realized something today. I've been waiting for people to befriend me. To smile at me. But maybe if I took that easy step of smiling at someone or saying to someone maybe I could befriend some one. That lesson today was exactly what I needed to near and it GMH

April, Alyssa, and Anny...you guys GMH that I can be myself and people are going to like me for who I am.

Carolyn thank you so much for being my best friend and letting me be myself and for not judging me. Thank you for listening to me and being there for me when i was upset. Thanks for making me smile. I love you so much and I miss you terribly. You GMH

"A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."-Elbert Hubbard